United Breweries is India’s biggest producer of beer – but an inspection has found stunning sanitation lapses. The brewing giant, which claims to account for more than fifty percent of beer production in India and saw its revenue grow by 21 percent in the 2018 financial year, was flagged on several concerning grounds by the […]
industry
Opening Indian pharma’s Bottle of Lies
“They often make their worst drugs — with the lowest-quality ingredients and the most manufacturing shortcuts — for the least regulated markets, including India,” writes investigative journalist Katherine Eban in her book Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Boom (also subtitled as Ranbaxy and the Dark Side of Indian Pharma), an exposé […]
Energy infrastructure: Why we need to rethink it
![A thermal powerplant situated @ 20 kms away of raichur [own work, CC license]. Energy infrastructure example.](https://i0.wp.com/www.healthissuesindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/800px-Raichur_Thermal_Power_Station.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 "Energy infrastructure: Why we need to rethink it")
Energy infrastructure needs to be seriously rethought if global warming targets are to be met, research published in the journal Nature reveals in a stark warning. Last year, a groundbreaking report issued by the UN body on climate change announced that “rapid, [far-reaching] and unprecedented changes” are necessary if the pace of global warming is […]
Rajasthan: Chief Minister speaks up on silicosis
Every year, 2.78 million people die because of diseases or accidents incurred in the workplace. In India, where eighty percent of labour occurs in unsafe environments, one of the major occupational hazards is silicosis. Nationwide, between three and ten million workers are at risk of developing the disease. For workers in Rajasthan, the toll is […]
World No Tobacco Day: The fight continues
Today marked World No Tobacco Day, but it was not only traditional tobacco products such as cigarettes that were in the firing line. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot used World No Tobacco Day to issue a ban on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), more commonly known as e-cigarettes or ‘vapes’. The devices can no longer be […]
Villagers boycott election over pollution
Amidst India going to the polls to determine the composition of the 17th Lok Sabha, by-elections took place in Tamil Nadu to fill eighteen constituencies in the state’s Legislative Assembly. And in one village, residents are refusing to participate. The reason? Pollution. A polling booth established in the village of Nagaraja Kandigai has not seen […]
Money for tribals diverted to their destructors?
Is the money meant for tribals being diverted to a cause that would only help in their displacement? According to a report published by The Wire on the basis of several right to information (RTI) queries filed by the portal, funds in the tribal sub-plan are being diverted for ‘other works.’ The Planning Commission had […]
India’s water woes are bigger than you think
It is not even summer season and great swathes of India’s land are suffering from drought, recently published data reveals. This is according to an IndiaSpend analysis of figures from the Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), which contains dire implications for an enormous number of Indians and a sizeable proportion of the country’s land. At […]
Air pollution is India’s apocalypse that won’t go away
More than two years ago, Greenpeace warned that India was facing an “apocalypse” because of air pollution. This week, we are given yet another warning about the public health catastrophe brewing in the air and festering in Indians’ lungs. This is thanks to the 2019 State of Global Air Report. In 2017, India lost 1.2 million […]
How air pollution ruins child health
Poisonous air is causing toxic damage to people across the world. Nine out of ten of us breathe polluted air. Now for the first time, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report has highlighted its damaging impact on child health and survival. Over 93 percent of the world’s 1.8 billion children are exposed to toxic air […]